Liberté, liberté chérie
This is not the time to offer a political commentary on recent events. But it is perhaps apposite to remark that many of the values we take for granted in our part of the world had their intellectual origins in France – together with those nourished or developed in the United States and in Britain.
The world is a complex place, and difficult dilemmas face us, but these values should continue to drive us: of tolerance, political secularism, equality of opportunity and personal freedom. Standing in solidarity with France, we should never compromise on these.
[Liberté, liberté chérie is a line from the sixth verse of the French national anthem, La Marseillaise.]
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Tags: France
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November 18, 2015 at 4:51 am
Yes I often wonder did the right guys win at Waterloo
November 18, 2015 at 2:50 pm
It’s one of the many ironies of history, and perhaps not a well known fact, that during the Second Empire Napoleon III banned La Marseillaise. The song that temporarily took its place was a crusading hymn called “Partant pour la Syrie” (Departing for Syria) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partant_pour_la_Syrie